


sew my lips closed (i’ll tear your heart)

by The-Immortal-Moon (LunaKat)



Series: Of Gearheaded Geeks and Alchemy Freaks (EdWin Week 2019) [5]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Bisexual Character, Coming Out, Drinking, EdWin Week 2019, F/M, Hangover, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 13:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18718189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaKat/pseuds/The-Immortal-Moon
Summary: For EdWin Week 2019. Day 5: Secrets“Although, I’ve got to say,” Winry continues in that voice of taunting affection, “of all the ways to come out as bisexual, this was probably theleastgraceful.”





	sew my lips closed (i’ll tear your heart)

This... isn’t exactly how Winry expected the night to go.

At _all_.

If she really thinks about it, this all started with the railroad that spans across the desert, metal arms that reach out to link the long-indifferent countries of Amestris and Xing in an amicable embrace. Many iterations of it zigzag its way across the Great Desert, some that pass through a station planted nearby the ruins of Xerxes (which has since become a rather popular tourist destination for archeologists and scientists and whatnot), and one that ended up linking to Risembool. The flood of immigrants caused the small rural town to swell in its numbers, an entire community forming in downtown—Xingtowns, they call them, because the one in Risembool is not an outlier.

But His Majesty Emperor Ling Yao used this particular Xingtown as an excuse to create an embassy in Risembool. There’s also one in East City, in the newly-restored Ishval, the rebuilt Liore, and in New Optain, but the Emperor has been known to frequent the Risembool embassy more often than not. Brigadier General Mustang has complained numerous times in the past about the inconvenience of having to travel down from Central just to meet with foreign politicians, and Ed has railed over the years about the inordinate frequency with which he is left to deal both with his former CO  _and_ the Xingese emperor (who is wont to appear unannounced at their door, much to Ed’s annoyance). But Winry thinks it all balances out with the fact that this also gives Mei and Al an excuse to make frequent trips back to Risembool. And Ed seems to agree, because for all his grumbling, he never actually  _does_  go to the courts demanding a restraining order.

Anyway, Ling. Ling’s tendency to show up at their doorstep unannounced—usually with Mei and Al in tow, if only to temper Ed’s threats of bodily harm, because Ling may act silly but he’s fiendishly clever when he wants to be—usually involves Winry taking a quick look at Lanfan’s arm while Ling ends up dragging Ed to the pub. Because apparently Ling has a strange fondness for Amestrian liquor products but a criminal inability to remember the way to the pub on his own. This time, Al and Mei are here as well, so Ed was probably feeling more inclined towards indulgence when the emperor snagged him by the newly-restored arm and dragged him out the door.

“...I’m gonna go with them to make sure nothing happens,” Al said, rising to his feet. Mei ended up going too, which Winry thought was largely on account of the fact that she and Lanfan still had retained a somewhat prickly tension between them, despite their status as allies, and she was considerate enough not to subject Winry to it. She left behind Xiao Mei to sleep in the corner and become the grudging subject to Nick and Bridget’s affection.

Lanfan is never happy about being forced to stay behind—maintenance or no—and now is no exception. Ling insists she needs to enjoy some downtime once and a while. Winry sometimes wonders if Lanfan even remembers what downtime is, or if she has always had such a grudging relationship with it. The whole while she’s terse and impatient, shifting uncomfortably in her seat if she isn’t peering out the window like she’s searching for a glimpse of trouble.

“I’m pretty sure Ling can survive a couple hours on his own,” Winry points out in the present.

The bodyguard opens her mouth to protest, seems to realize that doing so would mean speaking ill of her lord, then closes her mouth again and looks away with a huff.

Winry clicks the plating back into place. She isn’t the one who designed the arm—apparently the mechanic responsible for it was old at the time and deceased now—so working with it is an experience because it means rediscovering the peculiarities of the mechanics each time. “Plus Ed and Al and Mei are with him. So he’s not totally unprotected.”

“It makes me feel better to know  _I_  am protecting him,” Lanfan mutters in return.

Still, the evening was more or less uneventful. Nick and Bridget greeted the Xingese woman, and she was surprisingly amicable around them, keen to explain certain key aspects of Xingese culture and even impart some basics of the language in response to their flurry of questions. Eventually night fell and Winry directed her children to bed, to which they grudgingly complied. It wasn’t until she was returning downstairs that the clock chimed and she realized just how late it had gotten.

Late, and still no sign of Ed. Or Ling. Or Al or Mei. Which is weird—not that Winry would ever deny them a good time, but they don’t usually stay out  _this_  late. And even though she knows that they are all perfectly capable in their own right, every single last one of them, worry stirs in her belly regardless.

“Lanfan.” The Xingese woman, sitting impatiently at the dining room table, glances up at the sound of her name. “I think I’m going to go out and find them. Can you stay here and watch the kids for me?”

Before she’s even finished speaking, Lanfan rises to her feet. “Perhaps I should go instead?”

Winry pauses at the coatrack. “I have a feeling it’s less of a ‘an assassination attempt went wrong’ kind of thing and more of a ‘someone got too drunk’ kind of thing.”

Displeasure puckers Lanfan’s mouth, but potentially seeing Ling drunk off his ass is something she would rather not risk (probably a combination of mercy and loyalty). Not to mention that the mundaneness of it is something Winry is likely to be more equipped at handling than her.

Fairly certain she’ll acquiesce, Winry shrugs on a light windbreaker. “So can you watch the kids?”  

Lanfan seems to consider it for a moment, then she sinks back into her seat. “Anyone who even so much as tries to harm them shall face the fury of my blades.”

O...kay then. That works. ...sort of.

The night is dark and cool, the crispness of autumn encroaching upon the horizon. Winry takes with her a flashlight whose beam spills milky yellow across the path into town—and by the time her nose and cheeks and fingertips are numb from the chill, it falls upon a small clump of fairly recognizable faces.

Ed is leaning very heavily on his brother’s shoulder, his legs unsteady and Al forced to throw an arm around his shoulders just to keep Ed upright. Mei flutters nervously nearby, arms held out as though making to catch Ed in case he actually does fall over. And Ling keeps a skittish distance, watching the ensuing drama with something between fascination and vague terror.

“What  _happened_?” Winry asks, hastening over. 

At the sound of her voice, Al freezes and a guilty look flashes brightly across his features. “Winry! Hi, uh, w-what’re you doing here?”

“You were taking forever, so I came out to look for you and—” The smell of booze makes her still, and she glances at her husband. Upon closer inspection, she finds that he’s scarlet in the face, his hair disheveled and his gaze bleary. Her eyes narrow as she adds these symptoms to his overall unsteadiness.

Perhaps she stares at him too long, because he bursts into a fit of giggles.  _Giggles_. “Your  _face_!”

The fact that Al winces doesn’t escape her notice either.

“Ed.” Ed straightens, or tries to, but he ends up swaying and Al has to steady him by the waist and this only reinforces Winry’s suspicion. “Are you drunk?”

“Nooooo.” He jabs a swaying finger at the sky, as though it’s somehow offended him, and yeah, that basically confirms it. “I had  _coffee_.”

“Coffee,” she repeats flatly, and glances at Al for an explanation. Interesting how he steadfastly avoids her gaze.

Thankfully for him, Mei is more than willing to jump to his rescue. “My idiot half-brother mixed it with whiskey,” she explains, and then casts a glare at the emperor. “Very _strong_  whiskey.”

Ling continues to watch with a morbid curiosity as Ed muffles a burst of uncontrollable snickering into his hand. “In my defense, I didn’t think he would get _this_ drunk.”

In the span of approximately three seconds, Winry’s exasperation levels transcend approximately ten levels. She reaches up to massage the bridge of her nose to dissuade the upcoming migraine. “You realize he has a lower blood-to-alcohol ratio, right?”

A frown overcomes Ling’s face, and he looks subtly upward in a way that she’s learned he usually does when he’s trying to translate something in his head—it happens, sometimes, because Amestrian is not his native tongue and there are times when phrases go right over his head. But then he lowers his gaze again, blinking, and it’s clear that either he doesn’t know what she’s talking about or he just can’t find the proper Xingese equivalent.

Sighing, she moves over to Ed’s side. He’s still snickering. “Less body mass? Because he’s missing his leg? Ring a bell?”

“Ohhhhh,” Ling says, dropping his fist into his palm. “ _That_ makes sense.”

Mei massages her temple. Al looks tempted to hit him.

As Winry tries to slide her husband’s weight from Al’s shoulders, mindful of the flashlight still clutched in her hand, he turns to her and buries his face in the curve of her neck. She can feel the heat of his intoxicated flush. “You’re s’pretty when you’re mad.”

Winry flushes. It’s not the first time she’s seen Ed after a drink or two—hell, they had wine at their wedding reception and frequented the pubs at Rush Valley during their honeymoon. And again, Ling often drags Ed along to the pub when he’s in town, so she’s used to seeing Ed a little buzzed, a little flushed, dizzy and a bit unfettered. It’s actually kind of sweet, because tipsy Ed is a little less emotionally constipated than normal, and doesn’t stutter all over himself when he tries to say something even remotely romantic.

But this is the first time she’s seen him  _properly_  drunk, so much so that he isn’t even really in his right mind right now. She somehow doesn’t doubt that he’ll probably wake with a splitting hangover the next morning and maybe heave up his stomach contents at any moment. He probably won’t even remember tonight.

And following at the trend of being more comfortable. Turns out plastered Ed is giggly  _and_  corny. Huh. Go figure.

“Okay—whoa!” Ed’s full weight suddenly careens onto her and she stumbles, mentally cursing that he just had to go and get taller than her and make this all the harder and the beam of her flashlight wobbling as she struggles to steady them both. One of his arms ends up sprawled over her shoulders, and she steadies him with a hand around his waist. “Okay, I got him. You guys go ahead and I’ll meet you back at the house.”

Al watches her with all the wariness of someone who has seen their brother succumb to the taste of her wrench many, many times and now holds his hands out in a placating gesture to avoid that same wrath. “So... you’re not mad?”

“Oh, I’m mad,” she says, rounding on him, and he winces half from fear and half from the flashlight being aimed a little more directly at him. “I’m  _very_  mad, because you said you’d watch him and you  _very_  clearly didn’t, so I’m going to get to  _you_  in a minute—right after I kill Ling.”

To this, Ling feigns a shocked expression and turns to Mei as though expecting her to agree with the utter bewilderment that is being held accountable for his actions. Thankfully, Mei just plants her hands on her hips and proceeds to narrow her eyes, as though daring him to deny responsibility. Al, meanwhile, looks very inclined to make a run for it, but is held in place by an undeniable concern for his now very indisposed older brother.

And on her shoulder, Ed hums loudly in Winry’s ear. She sighs. “But he’s  _my_  husband, we said for better or for worse, so I’ll deal with him.”

“You’re sure?” Al still sounds wary, but he doesn’t look inclined to leave her alone, either.

“Yes, I’m sure. Now go relieve Lanfan from babysitting duty before she tries to stab one of the neighbors.”

“Only if you insist,” Ling says, but he’s already turning on his heel. Then he hastens away before Winry can say anything else.

Mei spends a minute, blinking as her half-brother retreats into the distance, then mutters something in aggravated Xingese as she marches after him. Al sends a simpering look of apology over his shoulder, along with a silent plea to not be associated with Ling’s misconduct, before following after.

Which leaves her alone in the dark with a very drunk spouse and a single beam of light.

Okay. Here we go. She takes a stumbling step forward, struggling to balance Ed’s limp weight with her own. He seems to at least be aware of the motion and they more or less start to synchronize. Still, the pace is ambling at best. It’s going to be a long walk back to the house.

“So.” Ed’s face is still nestled in the crook of her neck and the flutter of his breath is actually quite distracting. She forces herself to face forward and stay focused. “ _How_ much coffee did you drink?”

That causes him to raise his head and try to formulate a thoughtful expression, but it ends up looking a touch dopey with how red his face is, how cloudily unfocused his eyes are. “Like... threeeeee cups?”

She can’t tell if his drawing out the word is from uncertainty or some inebriated sense of humor. The fact that he bursts into snickering a moment later only muddies things further.

A sigh leaves her. “Did you eat anything?”

He shakes his head so hard his ponytail slaps at her cheek. “Nuh uh.”

Quickly, Winry does the mental math. Three cups of coffee—all potentially laced with strong whiskey, though even just two could prove disastrous, and maybe one, if the liquor was strong enough and in a high enough concentration—plus no food to absorb any of it equals a very drunk Edward Elric. Not that she was unaware of what she’s dealing with, but it just confirms that his judgement is severely impaired, at the moment.

“And _how_  did you not notice the alcohol?” she asks, because if it really was strong whiskey, then Ed definitely would have noticed the telltale burn over the sharp bitterness of caffeine.

“S’not my  _fault_!” Ed whines, words slurring together to the point where it’s difficult to pick the syllables apart. He drops his head, ponytail streaming in a honeyed river over his shoulder. His nose bumps her shoulder. “Stupid Ling. Stupid asshole. Dis’racted me.”

All of sudden, the flashlight beam flickers, stutters. Winry mouths a swear as she whacks it against her thigh, praying that the batteries haven’t given out yet. “Did he.”

“Yeah!” His temple bumps against hers. She can still feel the heat of his intoxication, his weight pressing against her. “S’not  _fair_ , Win! Why do all th’ hot ones gotta be  _assholes_?”

Wait.

What?

“Or maybe I’m jus’ attracted t’ assholes,” Ed rambles on, oblivious to the fact that Winry has actually stopped moving and is currently blinking as she tries to rewind and process that statement. “When I was fourteen, I hadda crush on Mustang.  _Mustang_! Can you fuckin’  _‘magine_?”

Is... Is he saying what she thinks he’s saying?

His head drops again with a whine that sounds ridiculously close to embarrassment. “Or maybe fourteen-year-ol’ me was jus’ an idiot.”

“Um. Ed?” As much as she hates to admit it, there’s a jolt of fear in her belly that begs for him not to be saying what she thinks he’s saying. Especially because there is a wedding band sitting on her ring finger that starts to itch and prickle. Especially because their children are tucked into their beds back home, sleeping blissfully. “What—What, exactly, are you talking about?”

It seems that, even in his inebriated state, he’s able to pick up on the hint of distress in her tone, because he bolts upright so hard that she actually feels the physical jolt of his spine straightening. “Shit, m’ _not_ talkin’ ‘bout you! Like, you’re  _not_  an asshole. You’re awesome. You’re  _‘mazin’_. M’so lucky I fell in love with you—like, not just ‘cause you’re a girl, but ‘cause you’re  _you_  an’ you _rock_  an’...”

Whatever else he was planning to say trails off, his mouth hanging open mid-sentence and realization lighting across the drunken stupor taking residence on his face. Winry watches him with a silent anxiety starting to awaken in the space between her ribs, biting her lip as her heartbeat quickens. It won’t matter, because they’re friends first, but—but it would change things, if he really is saying what she thinks he is.

“ _Oh_ ,” he says, his eyes growing round. “Maybe the asshole thing just applies to  _guys_.”

“...guys,” she repeats, carefully. Uncertainly. She doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, wants to hear all of it before she can form any opinions, good or bad.

“Yeah. ‘Cause my fuckin’ brain’s fucked up an’ it would _to’ally_ make sense!” He starts to charge forward, like a man on a mission, but forgets at the last moment that she’s struggling to balance them both and the movement threatens to dislodge her—even then, his balance is still tipping from the alcohol and he stumbles, she barely manages to catch them and keep them both from tumbling into the ground.

The flashlight continues to flicker. Through the veil of his bangs, his eyes gleam amber.

“Like,” he mumbles, still slurring words and still swaying like he’s going to topple over at any minute, “it already started puberty off by goin’ ‘hey, men’re attractive’ before goin’ ‘hey, women’re attractive, too’! So, like, y’know?”

And Winry blinks, her heart leaping to her throat half in surprise and half in relief, because wait a minute—is he... is he saying that...?

Oh.

 _Oh_.

While she stares and opens her mouth to say words that don’t make it out of her throat, a decisive sort of frown crosses his face. He nods, once, something familiarly stubborn taking residence in his eyes. “Yeah. My brain’s  _definitely_  fucked up.”

Oh  _gawd_. He’s such an  _idiot_.

Something in her relents, and she’s a little ashamed to say that she finds relief in the admission. Not that she would ever reject him outright—but the assurance that their relationship isn’t built on false foundations is a comfort nonetheless. And they’re not false, those foundations. They’re just a little different than she thought they were.

As quickly as it started to stutter, the milky beam from the flashlight returns to its full strength and pushes back the darkness with a sudden certainty that had been lacking before. Winry hums as she runs her thumb over the plastic ridges of the switch. Even if there was extra juice left in the batteries after all, they’ll still need to be replaced, just for good measure. You can’t power something on a source that is old and outdated, that is worn out from giving all it has and then some. Change is nature, and so is newness, but sometimes those things go hand in hand with what already exists in the first place. Little shifts in something won’t change the overall truth of what it is, of course. And you can’t expect something to stand on old foundations forever.

Winry turns to Ed, slumped over her and looking ready to collapse and burning hot in the face from the alcohol that’s momentarily impaired his judgement. Annoyance finds a way to flash in her belly as she realizes she would never have known if he weren’t in this condition. “Why didn’t you tell me  _before_?”

But it seems that clarity leaves him in that moment, and he slumps against her with newfound exhaustion. His cheek presses against hers, radiating heat. “‘Bout what?”

Huffing, she starts forward again. Lucky for him, she’s strong enough to carry both their weight. “About you liking men.”

“Oh.” His lashes flutter as though he’s struggling to stay awake, tickle against her cheek. He’ll probably black out before they reach the house, at this rate. “Didn’t want you to get th’ wrong ‘dea.”

“I wouldn’t have,” she says. To her surprise, she catches a flash of their house’s lights in the distance—the warm yellow glow spreads its arms out as though the welcome them home. “You’re still you, even if you like men.”

She pauses for a minute, and then adds, because she feels it absolutely necessary to say so, “Even if you _only_ like men.”

Because, above all, he is first and foremost her best friend, and what she wants more than her own happiness is for him to have his. God knows he deserves it, after everything that he’s been through.

For some reason, he snorts, as though he’s annoyed. Then he leans into her, his face once again finding a home in the crook of her neck. “I didn’t fall in love with a man,” he says, breath warm and tender against her skin. “Fell in love with  _you_.”

Winry flushes, and sighs over the fact that she just  _had_  to marry an idiot who somehow knows exactly how to make her heart melt.

So, yeah, this isn’t exactly how she planned to spend her night—but having her husband come out to her definitely isn’t the worst thing that could have happened.

* * *

Pain crashes over Ed wholeheartedly the moment his consciousness dares to emerge from the depths of slumber. His heartbeat throbs through his ears, through his skull, through everything above his shoulders. A gasp leaves him as his brain threatens to turn liquid beneath its crushing pressure.

“ _Ohfuck_ ,” he groans into the soft surface of a—pillow? Yeah, that’s a pillow. Nice pillow, soft pillow. Take away the incessant white-hot throbbing in his skull, please oh please.

“Morning sleeping beauty,” comes a vaguely familiar voice hovering over him, over the bright-painful fog that currently takes residence in his poor head.

Reluctantly, he allows one of his eyelids to flutter open—only to immediately regret it when daylight stabs into his vulnerable corneas, compounds upon the already blinding headache lining his cranium. Another groan leaves him, this one comprised purely of misery as he brings his hands to his head. His palms meet the stickiness of half-dried sweat, the fevered flush of skin. He could have sworn that this is what being hit with a truck feels like—not that he has any personal experience, which is surprising considering just how shitty his teenage years were and how familiar he’s become with almost every type of physical misery—only it seems that the truck only decided to run exclusively over his head. It wouldn’t surprise him if he looked in the mirror to find a tire track branded blackly on his forehead.

“ _God_.” It feels like someone cracked his skull open and flooded it with molten iron. Pain pools in his eye sockets. The back of his mouth stings with the taste of bile but it’s surprisingly parched. “What _happened_?”

“Well.” The voice is feminine, light, sweet in a way that sinks into his bones and eases some of the ache, cliché as that sounds. When he dares to peel open his eyelids again, Winry’s hazy form creates a blessedly dark outline against the offensive brightness. “You were taking a long time, so I went looking for you, and found Al carrying your drunken ass down the road.”

His eyes narrow, but the curtains are drawn. And yet, it’s still too bright. Goddamn. “My... what?”

“I yelled a little at him later for not watching you,” she explains as he starts to sit up.

Which proves to be a bad idea because one), sudden motion makes pain much worse than it already is. Two), worse pain plus motion equals vague nausea. And three), there is very real chance he might actually throw up.

Still, indignation finds a way. “I’m an adult, y’know. I can watch myself.”

Winry arches a brow, half disbelieving and half amused. She hands him a glass of water, as though she can guess at the thirst that tunnels its way down his throat.

“I  _can_ ,” he grumbles, and downs the glass in a handful of greedy gulps. The water is sharp in its coolness, quick to slake his thirst and wash away the lingering taste of bile, but the glass is emptied far too quickly.

“Anyway,” she says, reaching out to take the glass once he’s finished, “so I took over and carried you home. I held your hair while you threw up, thanked the stars you didn’t wake up the kids, and then you passed out.”

Oh. That makes a lot of sense. Also explains why he doesn’t remember a lot. “I love you so much.”

Again, she rolls her eyes. Then she rises up from where she was sitting at the foot of the bed to breeze over to the bathroom. Ed realizes now that he’s lying in their shared bed—the curtains are closed, probably to accommodate what he now understands to be a massive hangover, and he’s laid out rather gracelessly over rumpled sheets. In rumpled clothes. Winry probably had to sleep on the couch, a fact that makes guilt pang in his gut. Touching his hair, he realizes it’s half-slipped out of its tail and hanging in a limp mat.

With a grunt, he tugs the hair tie free and sets about pulling his hair back into a neater arrangement. Slowly but surely, last night resurfaces in hazy blurs, in too-loud memories and laughter because everything was strangely hilarious and...

He frowns. “...wait. I don’t remember drinking anything.”

The faucet rushes as it’s turned on, refilling the glass. “Oh. Ling slipped whiskey in your coffee as an experiment.”

“He  _what_?”

She pokes her head out just as the faucet is turned off. “Don’t worry, I yelled at him, too.”

“That—!” Ed brings his hands up to strangle the air to mitigate his frustration, but there’s nothing remotely satisfying about strangling something without solid form. And it is in no way as gratifying as the actual act of punching the stupid jackass in the face—stupid jackass with his stupid wolfish smirk, stupid gleaming eyes, stupid smug face, stupid—

“Jackass probably pissed me off so much that I didn’t even noticed,” he huffs.

Something shifts on Winry’s face as she drifts back over, but it’s so quick and infinitesimal that Ed can’t quite place it. She’s silent as she hands him the newly-refilled glass, then sinks back into her original spot at the foot of the bed. As he starts drinking—a little less hasty this time, he doesn’t want to choke or something—he notices her gaze lingers on him.

Okay. That’s weird...

Just as he comes up for air, she folds her hands on her laps and says, “Last night, you said his hotness distracted you.”

Water in his mouth or no, Ed  _chokes_.

No. No, no, no. He couldn’t have  _actually_  admitted—

“And then,” she goes on, just as his horror starts to mount and his pulse quickens, “you said you had a crush on General Mustang when you were fourteen.”

... _fuck_.

“Winry.” His hands shake as he slowly sets the half-empty glass of water down on the night table and he can feel the tightness of his wedding band on his finger and he can’t ruin this, he can’t  _lose this_ , what must she think of him— “I’m not gay.”

“I know,” she says.

...huh?

He blinks. Uncertain. Wary. Still not convinced she won’t brain him with a wrench for hiding something this big from her. “You... You do?”

“Yes, Ed.” She smiles in this wry, amused manner and—that  _can’t_  be it, how can that be  _it_ , why is she not freaking out right now, what the  _hell_. “You told me. You actually starting waxing poetic.”

“I  _what_.”

A teasing light takes residence in her eyes, and she smirks in that manner that reminds them of when they were kids and used to arm-wrestle for desert. “You compared me to the stars, but then said I was better because, and quote, ‘you can’t fuck the stars’.”

Suddenly, he can’t decide which is more embarrassing—that  _statement_ , the fact that it actually  _came out of his mouth_ , or that he  _actually_  confessed to having a juvenile crush on  _Colonel Bastard_. His face burns as he buries it in his hands. “...oh my god.”

“Although, I’ve got to say,” Winry continues in that voice of taunting affection, “of all the ways to come out as bisexual, this was probably the _least_ graceful.”

Wincing, he lowers hands. He swore that no one would ever find out about this and now—fuck. Shit. This _can’t_ get any worse.

Then he registers what she just said, and frowns. “Wait, bi-what?”

Her face goes blank for a moment. “You...”

She doesn’t finish. Just blinks at him.

His confusion only grows when she throws a hand over her mouth and starts to laugh. _Laugh_. Like this—like there’s anything even remotely funny about what’s going on right now. “Y-You don’t even know what it’s _called_.”

“What  _what’s_  called?”

And then she bursts out into laughter so strong it actually has her falling back against the bed. Alarm has him curling his knees to his chest just as her back collides with the mattress, and then bewilderment has him watching as she all but writhes under the force of her own amusement. The walls literally echo with the sound of her laughter—she’s turning red, tears under her lashes, reaching down to hug her stomach before it explodes.

...he’s missing something.

Finally, she seems to recover another, heaving herself upright with heavy, gasping breaths punctuated by lingering giggles. She smears mirthful tears with her palm. “You’re so _clueless_!”

“Hey,” he protests, but then he’s cut off when Winry’s forefinger jabs into his nose.

“Bisexual.” She reclaims her hand and then sits up fully, drawing her knees forward to sit fully upon her calves and feet. “Being attracted to your own gender and to another.”

He blinks. “That’s... that’s a thing?”

A wide grin spreads across her face, and he appreciates how hard she is trying to hold back laughter just then. “Well,  _yeah_.”

That—

All this time, he thought—he thought it was just  _him_. Just his brain being  _weird_ , that some wires were crossed and there was something keeping them from choosing one way or another.

But turns out, nope. This is actually a  _thing_. This is something with a  _label_  and a  _name_  and that means that he apparently  _isn’t_  the only one who somehow finds attraction in both genders. Somehow, some way, he isn’t the only one. Someone else actually had ti endure a puberty where both men and women inspired a particular warm tingle in the lower abdomen, then had to grapple with a reality in which they were sort of gay but sort of not and maybe something else entirely but not really knowing  _what_.

And that’s... oddly reassuring.

Then he has to frown, because wait. “How do  _you_  know about it?”

“There’s this whole community down in Rush Valley,” Winry explains brightly. She looks almost... fond, as she recounts this, as though it’s a pleasant memory. “I got introduced to it through Paninya and Mr. Garfiel and I learned a lot. There was even this really fun parade I went to.”

Fun, she says. And she doesn’t look— He just can’t understand it. “So... you’re  _not_  weirded out?”

All of a sudden, the smile dims and in its place emerges a look that is softer, tender in a way he didn’t think she would be able to muster after she learned about all this. There’s a bit of fond exasperation mixed in as she leans forward, mixed with that wry amusement he’s so familiar with. When she exhales through her nose, there’s no disgust or revulsion or worry or—or anything that he thought would be there, if heaven forbid she ever found out.

“Of course not.” She reaches out and his breath stills when her hands cup his face. “It’s  _you_.”

Something in him quivers. Wavers. And then gives out—a weight slipping free form his skeleton. And he finds himself leaning forward until their foreheads brush. “...oh.”

“You’re a real dumbass, sometimes,” she says, and he almost laughs, because she’s right. Here he is, keeping secrets and not giving her enough credit and  _god_ , he feels so _stupid_ for thinking that she wouldn’t accept this.

“So you weren’t... even for a minute?” He’s not sure why he’s pushing the boundaries—maybe because the skeptic in him still can’t accept how easily she’s taking all of this.

Through the veil of her bangs, though, he sees her bite her lip. “I mean, at first, it sounded like you were _only_ attracted to men, and I...” She trails off, which is telling—but then she musters a little laugh, the kind that you give over something embarrassing that happened so long ago that all you can find in it is humor. “Which was kind of stupid of me, I guess. I know you better than that.”

Fucking hell. That’s not stupid—if someone suddenly told you that they were attracted to another gender, if that was the first thing that they said about the matter, of course there would be that tiny little fear. There’s nothing to be ashamed of over that. Especially given that she’s able to then grapple and accept something it took him a good few years to even  _understand_.

And even if it was only for a minute, he still put her through that.

“Winry.” He sets his hands over hers, curls his fingers in the spaces between her own, and presses his forehead against hers. Her eyes are so close that he swears he could drown in sapphire blue. Their wedding bands find a way to meet in interlocking fingers. “I love  _you_ , okay? Out of all the—the women _and_ the men in the world, I fell in love with _you_.”

“I know.” She grins. “And I love you too.”

* * *

Later, Winry blinks, realization seeming to strike her, and she turns to Ed with an urgent look in her eye. “Wait. Does Al know?”

“Uh...” To be honest, this is the first time he’s told  _anyone_. And even then, it wasn’t like this was an on-purpose thing.

“Ed. You  _did_  tell your  _brother_ , didn’t you?”

He says nothing to avoid incrimination.

But something on must show his face anyway, because she buries her face into her palms with a groan. “Oh my _God_.”

“Gimme a break, I’m hungover.” Hastily, he reaches back over for the glass of water he left on the nightstand. Pretends to drink long and deep of what little liquid remains to avoid the utter exasperation in her stare.

Annoyance laces her sigh. He takes this to mean that this isn’t the last he’s heard of this.

**Author's Note:**

> So! I headcanon Ed as being bisexual (more in Brotherhood/manga than '03, but anyway) and it's 20biteen, so I decided to write this because it's very important to remember that bisexual means you _can_ form a loving relationship with someone of the opposite gender.
> 
> It's a thing. It's allowed. And just because someone is in an opposite-gender relationship doesn't erase their bisexuality in the same way being in a same-gender relationship wouldn't. Just like how anyone being in any relationship wouldn't change the fact that they can be in love with their partner but still find other people attractive or sexy.
> 
> Anyway! Hope you enjoyed!


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